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"FORTUNE &amp;#8212; We can learn a lot from anniversaries. Consider, if you will, the upcoming fifth anniversary of the bottom of the stock market, which hit its low on March 9, 2009 as share prices plummeted and many holders ran screaming for the exit as predictions of the end of financial and investment life as we had known it filled the air.\nSince then, U.S. stocks have almost tripled in value, according to the Wilshire 5000 index, the best measure of the total U.S. market. The value of Americans\u2019 home equity is up sharply, too &amp;#8212; but nowhere near as much as stocks have risen. And thereby hangs a little-noticed tale of how people at or near the top of the economic food chain have profited substantially more from the stock and housing rebounds than other people have.\nNo, this isn\u2019t a screed about the evils, real and imagined, of income and wealth inequality. I\u2019m just telling you what the numbers showed me when I decided to compare the rebound in homeowners\u2019 equity, which is the biggest source of wealth for broad swatches of Americans, with the rebound of stocks, which is the biggest source of wealth for only a relatively small handful of Americans, primarily those with high net worths. And, I assume, high incomes.\nMORE:\u00A05 economic myths that just won&amp;#8217;t die\nMy wealth numbers come from Federal Reserve surveys of households\u2019 net worth. I\u2019ve tweaked some of the Fed\u2019s statistics, which it releases quarterly, to estimate values for stocks on Market Bottom Day in 2009, and for stocks and home equity today. (You can find my methodology at the bottom of this column.)\nThe Fed excludes mutual funds and retirement accounts from its stock numbers, and I don\u2019t think that including them would change the numbers in any meaningful way, given how concentrated stock ownership is. For example, economist Robert Frank of Cornell estimates that 5% of Americans own 60% of all individual stocks.\nAnd here we go.\nWhen last I looked, the Wilshire 5000 &amp;#8212; the broadest measure of the U.S. stock market &amp;#8212; was up about 190% from the bottom. During the same five-year period, the value of home equity has risen by about 40%. That\u2019s about $3 trillion, which isn\u2019t chopped liver. But it\u2019s little more than a third as much as the $8.8 trillion increase in Americans\u2019 holdings of stocks (as we\u2019re measuring them here).\nFive years ago, at the stock market bottom, home equity, at $7.4 trillion, substantially exceeded the value of stocks owned by individuals ($4.4 trillion). Now, stocks are about $13.2 trillion, compared with $10.4 trillion of home equity.\nMORE:\u00A0It&amp;#8217;s still a lot cheaper to buy than rent\nAfter bottoming on March 9, 2009, stocks roared up &amp;#8212; by the end of the month, they had risen about 18% &amp;#8212; and have pretty much kept going. Meanwhile, home equity\u00A0 kept drifting down until the middle of 2012, when it finally turned upward.\nStocks have set one new high after another, while home equity is still down from its peak of $12.5 trillion in 2005. At the time, stocks were $8 trillion, about 65% of home equity. Now, stocks are more than 125% of home equity.\nThe bottom line: The rising tide in stocks and home equity is floating all boats &amp;#8212; but the boats with lots of stocks in them are floating higher a lot quicker.\nWhere my numbers come from:\nStocks:\nOn March 9, 2009, the Wilshire 5000 closed at 84.5% of its value on March 30 of that year. So I subtracted 15% from the Fed\u2019s March 30, 2009 stock ownership number to come up with a March 9 number.\nSimilarly, I compared the Wilshire\u2019s value in late February with its value on Sept. 30, 2013, the date of the most recent Fed numbers. The Wilshire has risen about 10% since Sept. 30, so I added about 10% to the Fed\u2019s Sept. 30 number.\n(I didn\u2019t take net purchases and sales of stocks, as reported by the Fed, into account; there are only so many numbers I can cope with without having my head explode.)\nThe Fed numbers include Americans\u2019 holdings of both U.S. and foreign stocks, while the Wilshire measures only U.S. stocks. But I doubt that a more elaborate estimation method than my simplistic use of the Wilshire 5000 would make a substantial difference in the findings.\nHouse equity:\nI used the Fed\u2019s March 30, 2009 number as my starting point, because I have no idea how to estimate home equity value three weeks earlier. I came up with my current estimate for home equity by taking the Sept. 30, 2013 number, adding $700 billion, and rounding up. That $700 billion assumes that home equity has continued rising since last Sept. 30 at the same monthly rate that it increased between June 30 and Sept. 30.\nMy stock and equity numbers come from two lines &amp;#8212; corporate equities, and owners\u2019 equity in household real estate &amp;#8212; in the Fed\u2019s Balance Sheet of Households and Nonprofit Organizations."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2014/02/28/stocks-rising-tide-floats-some-boats-higher-than-others/>